


so many ways to talk about longing

by lymricks



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, this is pretty fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 14:56:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19405627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lymricks/pseuds/lymricks
Summary: Steve wakes up--in a pool lounger--to Billy Hargrove looming over him. Billy pushes his sunglasses down and Steve thinks sleepily that it must be so that Steve gets the full impact of Billy’s narrow-eyed glare. “Harrington,” Billy says. “We’re fucking closed.”(or, three times Billy doesn't let Steve touch the radio and one time he kind of does).





	so many ways to talk about longing

**Author's Note:**

> There are only so many ways to  
> talk about longing. I disagree. I have been staring down  
> longing’s bright barrel for years—polishing it, admiring it,  
> clutching it close. Tell me today I will find a formula to  
> quell its heat, stifle its sharp shudder.
> 
> — Jesse Rice-Evans, from “Strawberry Moon

It’s early spring and they’re driving through Hawkins late at night. Billy’s got the windows down. He’s smoking and Steve hates that, not the smoking because Steve does it too, but the windows down. He doesn’t know how to tell Billy that something might try to get through. He doesn’t know how to tell him that even though the glass probably wouldn’t stop one of those things, it still makes Steve feel better to have it there, between them and all the trees. 

Steve’s never told Billy why he needs to drive around Hawkins at 3am or why he can’t sleep or why he never goes in the pool even though he’s there all the time. Billy’s never told Steve why he’s on the road at 3am, or why he has bruises in weird places _all the time_ , or why he flinches, sometimes, if Steve moves too fast and Billy’s not expecting it.

They’re not _close_ like that, is the thing. So they drive through Hawkins and Billy rolls the windows down and Steve curls his fingers around his seatbelt and tries to convince himself that Billy will drive fast enough to get them out, if it comes down to it.

It’ll probably work, Steve has to admit. Billy drives like a fucking _maniac_.

Steve reaches for the radio and changes the station. He hums along, instantly, “Wake me up, before you, go go--”

Billy smacks his hand hard enough to _really_ hurt. Steve looks at him. “What the fuck, man?”

“Don’t touch my goddamn radio, Harrington. Your ass want to walk home?”

Steve doesn’t need to look at the trees to know he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t need to look at Billy’s face to know it isn’t an idle threat. He sinks back against his seat to sulk in silence.

~

It’s late spring, and it’s 5am, and Billy’s grip on the steering wheel is white knuckled, but it doesn’t _actually_ hide how bad his hands are shaking, or explain why he called Steve’s house at 4:45am and told him to get the fuck outside for a drive. Steve’s quiet, as he looks at him in the pale blue light of the morning. It’s late enough, now--and so light enough, now--that Steve can sort of see bruising on Billy’s face, a split lip. Billy doesn’t tell him what happened. Even though he wants to ask if Billy’s okay, he doesn’t.

They’re not _close_ like that, is the thing. 

Billy drives them through Hawkins, making these awful, high speed loops that make Steve grip the seatbelt so hard in panic that it hurts. Steve likes driving, sure. He doesn’t even hate driving with Billy. This isn’t the normal maniac shit, though. Steve thinks they might actually die in this car.

Finally, though, Billy pulls over at a gas station. He disappears inside to get coffee without a word. When he comes back with only one, Steve rolls his eyes and lets his head fall back against the seat. He wants to call Billy an asshole, but he doesn’t have the energy, because _someone_ woke him up at fucking _4:45am_ to go drive around in creepy silence for two hours.

And now they’re not even _driving_ because Billy doesn’t take the car out of park or put his foot on the gas. He just sits there, staring out his windshield at this gas station on some road that leads out of Hawkins, clutching his cheap paper cup of coffee. The silence before had been creepy. This silence is awkward.

Steve reaches out and flicks on the radio. He grins. “Take on me--”

Billy _dumps his coffee in Steve’s lap_ , who yelps. “Man, what the actual _fuck_ \--”

“Didn’t I _already_ tell you _not to touch my goddamn radio_?” Billy snarls, and it’s so vicious that for a second Steve just blinks at him, his lap soaked in hot coffee, Billy’s teeth bared.

Steve unbuckles his seatbelt. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m good. I’ll get a ride,” and he climbs out of the car and slams the door shut. He’s half expecting Billy to chase him into the gas station, but the door to the place isn’t even shut behind him before he hears the engine rev. When he turns around, Billy’s gone.

Steve flips him off and the cashier, a nice looking older woman, asks him what his mother would think of that before she lets him use the phone.

~

It’s early summer and Max Mayfield has been pounding on his door for fifteen minutes. Steve finally goes downstairs to let her in when it’s apparent that she’s not getting the message that if he _doesn’t answer the door_ he _doesn’t want company_.

“Were you raised by _wolves_?” he asks her.

“Just Susan,” Max says, who is calling her mom Susan now. Steve thinks it might be because she’s going through a rebellious teenage phase, or whatever. Max hesitates, “And Neil _now_ , I guess,” and she says it with a heaviness that Steve should probably investigate, but honestly it’s _early_ and he’s a _senior_ and he doesn’t have to go to fucking high school anymore because it’s _summer_ so. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

Max shifts her weight. “Yeah, I need a ride?”

“But you’re at my house? Like, you must have had a ride here.”

Max shifts her weight again. “I drove?”

Steve blinks. He peers over her shoulder. Now that he’s looking for it, he sees the Camaro parked haphazardly, half on the grass, half on the road. It’s pretty much exactly how he thinks an 8th grader thinks parking works, so it confirms Max’s assertion that she drove herself to Steve’s house this morning.

Steve has two questions about this. One of them is, _well, then why don’t you drive your fucking self to school_? which is honestly not a productive question to ask, so he goes with the second.

“Uh,” Steve says. “Why do you have Billy’s car?”

Max’s eyes roll back so hard Steve worries for her health. “He’s _in_ the car,” she says. 

None of this explains why _Max_ drove, is the thing, so Steve just keeps blinking at her.

“Oh my god,” Max says. “He’s fucking _wasted_. He can’t drive. He said to come here. I don’t fucking know, all right, but I have a _huge_ presentation in spanish today. Like, spanish class, but I also need to _speak spanish_ and if _Dustin_ gets a higher grade than me, I’m absolutely going to _lose it_ , okay, so just _help me_ with this _one little thing_!”

She stops talking abruptly and stares at him. Steve wonders if this is how she got Billy to teach her how to drive. She’s _such_ a bully.

She’d also said _he said to come here_.

The last time he’d been in the car with Billy was a month ago easy. That time, Billy had abandoned him at a gas station. Based on this last experience, Steve _shouldn’t_ go get in the car. He is, though, a little bit curious about what’s got Billy Hargrove wasted at 7am. He’s also curious what’s got him _still_ trying to drive Max to school, so he shuts the door to the house behind him.

The whole time he’s walking across the lawn, he’s trying to see Billy. It isn’t until he gets into the driver’s seat and twists all the way around that he finds him. Billy’s in the back. “Hey,” Steve says, and Billy flips him off.

He doesn’t speak at _all_ until Steve gets Max to school. “Are you gonna get up front or what?” Steve asks, finally.

“Fuck you,” Billy spits from the back seat.

Steve’s pretty sure that means _no_ , but Billy doesn’t elaborate and Steve’s not totally sure where to _bring_ him. Billy _reeks_ of booze. Steve doesn’t know a whole lot about Billy’s dad, but he figures that any parents wouldn’t be thrilled about their kid coming home this drunk this early in the day, so Steve crosses home off the list.

In the end, it’s actually an easy decision. He does what they always do: drives for a while. Billy doesn’t yell at him about fucking up the Camaro not even _once_ , so he’s either asleep or really, really drunk.

At a stop sign in the middle of fucking nowhere, Steve finally turns all the way around to look at Billy. He hadn’t gotten a good look at him before. Steve didn’t want to stare with Max in the car, but he’s fucking curious now.

Steve thinks about a lab report he’d been working on about a month ago. Dustin had been with him, peering over his shoulder as Steve painstakingly copied down his data. “Steve, my man,” Dustin had told him, slow, “Data is just like. The _facts_. Just observe. Don’t make guesses yet, right?” and so that’s what Steve does, when he looks at Billy. He gathers data, just the facts.

Billy’s not asleep. He meets Steve’s gaze with red rimmed eyes. One of them is black. He has a split lip. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants. His chest and stomach and sides are mottled with bruising.

“Stop sign means _go_ ,” Billy says without looking away.

“No? That’s the _opposite_ of--”

“No like, _eventually_ ,” Billy insists. “Not. Not stop _forever_ \--”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Steve says, but he turns around and steps on the gas, and the silence is awkward and he hates it, but he doesn’t touch the radio.

Eventually, Billy falls asleep. Steve knows because his breathing goes soft and he snores a little bit. Steve steals a few glances back, fascinated by the way that Billy looks when he sleeps, but he’s careful not to stare for too long. It’s scientific principal. He doesn’t want Billy to--well, it’s not scientific. He’s not collecting data. If he’s being honest, he likes the quiet. He doesn’t want his staring to wake Billy up.

So Steve gets gas and drives around with Billy in the back for a while. When he wakes up, all Billy will talk about is how he needs food _right fucking now, Harrington, make it happen, oh my god, turn here_.

Steve is out money for a tank of gas, a pack of cigarettes, fries they shared, _two milkshakes_ , and a burger by the time he’s dropping Billy off in front of his house. Billy twists in the seat--he’s in the passenger’s seat now--and squints at the little house on this shitty little street. He says, “I’m good. He’s gone now,” and then he shoves forward out of the car.

Steve is in the _Camaro_ at Billy’s house. He doesn’t _have_ his own car here. “I need a ride?” Steve asks.

Billy shrugs, “That doesn’t sound like my fucking problem,” he bites out, and then he disappears inside the house with the keys.

Steve walks home.

~

Steve wakes up to Billy Hargrove looming over him. Billy pushes his sunglasses down, Steve thinks sleepily that it might be so that Steve gets the full impact of Billy’s narrow-eyed glare. “Harrington,” Billy says. “We’re fucking _closed_.”

Steve is a lot of things, but a morning person isn’t one of them. It’s not technically morning, anymore, so that probably doesn’t apply, but he did just wake up. He thinks the principal stands. It’s a law of science, or something. 

Steve groans. It’s _August_. He’s done with high school. He doesn’t need to fucking _think_ about science _ever again_.

When he sits up, rubbing his eyes, he remembers where he is and why Billy’s looming over him. He’s at the pool. He’d brought the kids here, earlier. He remembers, vaguely, them deciding to go to the quarry instead. Steve had found a good lounge chair, though, under an umbrella, and sprawled out on his towel. He must have fallen asleep.

He’s not really sleeping, lately and whatever late night driving thing he and Billy had in the spring, they haven’t talked since the time Max drove the Camaro to Steve’s house.

_He said to come here_ , she’d explained. She’d clearly fucking heard wrong. Billy had made Steve walk home and then ignored him for two goddamn months.

Sometimes, when he’s at the pool and Billy’s on duty, Steve tries to see if there’s any of that bruising he’d noticed that morning in the backseat of his car. He can’t ever see it, though. Sometimes there’s a shadow on Billy’s cheek, maybe, but Steve’s pretty sure it’s a sunburn--not that Billy gets them. He freckles, instead, turns golden.

It’s just an observation. Another piece of data that Steve’s collecting. It doesn’t mean anything that he’s noticed.

“Earth to fucking _Harrington_ ,” Billy says, and then he kicks the lounger. It’s probably just to make Steve focus, but it’s not like Hawkins Public Pool is investing in high quality shit, so Billy’s kick makes the thing fold in on itself. It collapses and dumps Steve onto the concrete.

“Ow,” Steve says. “Mother _fuck_. Honestly, what is your goddamn _problem_?” He picks himself up from the ground, peering at the scraped skin of his elbow. He’s not really looking for an answer, but he should have expected one. Billy Hargrove _always_ has something to say.

“My _problem_ ,” Billy says, stepping close, “Is that you’re making it _real fucking hard_ for me to close the pool. My problem is that you need to get _away_ from me.”

That feels like a _lot_ , honestly, given the fact that they haven’t spoken in months, and that the last time they spoke, Steve had bought Billy food and dropped him off at home. It had been almost like a--

Steve shuts that thought right down and focuses, instead, on the way that Billy’s two inches from his face and snarling at him.

“Man, I think _you_ need to get away from _me_ ,” Steve bites back, because he’s got an ache in his neck from sleeping on the crappy lounger, he’s got a bad attitude from not sleeping, he’s hot from the sun, he’s--

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” Billy asks, and then he’s stepping right into Steve’s space. Steve doesn’t _mean_ to do it, it’s just instinctive. Billy steps into his space and Steve’s body screams _threat_ , and it’s nothing like that night, Steve’s calculated, controlled, two fingered shove off Billy’s chest. Steve panics, is the thing, so he presses both palms against Billy’s chest and shoves.

Shoves him backwards.

Right into the pool.

Billy makes this shocked sound when he hits the water that would be hilarious if Steve didn’t know that the second he comes up, Billy’s probably going to kill him. He’s bracing himself for it when Billy breaks the surface, hair dripping, spitting water out of his mouth, and--

\--and laughing.

Steve blinks.

“Got some fire in you after all,” Billy says, and it’s an echo, and Steve knows it is, and he knows, too, that he’s supposed to respond, but he’s just _staring_ because he doesn’t actually think that he’s ever seen Billy Hargrove laugh? It’s so weird, because he’s never noticed it _before_ , but now Billy’s laughing and it’s not mean or angry or cruel or the lead in for something acidic, it’s just laughter. 

“Help me out,” Billy says next, swimming up to the edge and holding out a hand.

“Yeah, no fucking way,” Steve says immediately. “You’re gonna pull me in. I don’t want to get my hair wet.”

Billy laughs again, rich and warm, and he laughs with his whole body, the water vibrating with his movement, and Steve can’t get enough of it, all of the sudden, so he just keeps watching. Billy pulls himself out of the pool, still grinning to himself. Steve should see it coming, but he doesn’t really. He’s expecting to be thrown in the pool, not for Billy Hargrove to walk over and plant his palm right on top of Steve’s head, rubbing water into Steve’s hair, mussing it.

“Oh, shit,” Billy says, widening his eyes, “Did you say you _didn’t_ want to get your hair wet?”

Steve laughs now, too, and he ducks out from under Billy’s hand and shoves him again, but it’s lighter this time. He doesn’t want to push him into the water.

Billy closes the pool when Steve leaves, but both of them come back, a case of beer hooked against Billy’s hip, a bag of snacks in Steve’s hand. He’s still not totally sure what’s happening, and maybe this is some elaborate plan to kill him, but it’s kind of nice, sprawling out on a pool chair next to someone his own age while the sun sets, beer cool in his hand.

Billy’s smoking. When Steve turns to glance at him, he’s got his eyes closed and his head tipped back. There’s a dusting of bruising that Steve hadn’t noticed along his jaw, his throat. It’s faded, now, and faint enough against Billy’s tan that it’s hard to see. Steve only catches it because he’s staring. He’s not sure that he’s ready to admit--to himself or to Billy--why he’s staring, but he doesn’t stop, not with Billy’s head tipped like that, not with his eyes closed.

“I can fucking feel you looking at me,” Billy says after a few minutes of silence. “What do you want? Is there something on my face?”

“No,” Steve says, coughing awkwardly. He turns to look back at the pool, at the trees beyond it, framed in the darkening blue of a late August evening. There’ll be stars soon, he knows. Lightning bugs. Somewhere, the kids are wondering why Steve isn’t around to drive them to the arcade, or something, but he doesn’t really regret that he’s not there, now. “Just looking.”

He’s expecting something from Billy that stings, but Billy hums to himself instead and keeps his eyes closed. After another few minutes, Billy says, “Go grab the radio from under my chair,” and he motions to the lifeguard’s chair, where he perches to yell at kids.

Steve blinks. “Uh, okay?” he says, but Billy’s eyes stay closed, so Steve shrugs before he gets up, walks over to it, turns it on as he carries it back and sets it between the two of them. Steve messes with the dial, trying to find something with a little less static, and settles on a pop station he likes.

“I can feel you rolling your eyes,” Steve says, crouching down to fuck with the antenna.

“That’s because you always pick shit music,” Billy says, and Steve--since everything that’s happened--usually has a solid awareness of his surroundings, of who is where, of how close, but Billy’s voice is right behind him and it startles Steve. He jumps, cringing forward toward the radio. “Easy, Harrington,” Billy says when Steve almost tips himself over. His breath is warm where it brushes against Steve’s ear. His palm is like a brand where it’s steadying Steve, pressed against his ribcage. The wind blows, hot and humid, and when it ruffles Billy’s tanktop, Steve can feel the fabric brushing against his spine.

Despite the heat, goosebumps rise on Steve’s skin. Billy’s thumb brushes against his side and Steve spares a moment to be grateful he isn’t ticklish.

Billy’s other arm reaches around, does something complicated with the antenna, and the static fades away right before Billy turns it to a different station. Steve doesn’t recognize the song immediately and he doesn’t have the brain space to figure it out. He’s too busy focusing on the fact that he’s caged against Billy’s chest, between his arms. It makes his heart race--which is a familiar feeling--for a very unfamiliar reason.

“Billy?” Steve asks, his voice soft.

“Shut up, Harrington,” Billy says, and Steve can feel Billy’s lips press against his shoulder.

In that moment, he supposes that he has two options. He can rip away and say something cutting and ensure that Billy Hargrove leaves him alone for _good_ or he can turn around and do something about the goosebumps on his skin.

Steve picks option two before he’s really thought about it, and Billy--when Steve kisses him--tastes like cigarettes and cheap beer and a little salty from the potato chips. His hair--when Steve tangles his fingers in it--is still damp from the earlier shove into the pool. He smells like sunscreen and chlorine, and Steve knows all this because they’re kissing, and he’s sitting in Billy’s lap as they do, chest to chest, Steve’s knees pressing into the concrete.

After a while, after too long, when Steve is dizzy and breathless, Billy says, “This would be better in the fucking chairs, Harrington,” and so Steve stands up on unstable legs and then he’s half lying on top of Billy, in the cradle of his hips. It leaves little to the imagination about either of them. Steve stifles a gasp when Billy’s thigh shifts, pushing against Steve, sending heat roiling through his belly.

“I’ve never--” Steve starts.

“Jesus, do you _ever_ shut up?” Billy asks. “I’ve _got you_.”

And it’s the _weirdest_ fucking thing, but Steve believes him.

After, once Billy’s asleep, snoring lightly but not in a weird way, Steve leans over and flicks the dial on the radio, humming along to the first song that comes on the pop station. Billy pinches him so hard that Steve falls fully off him. “What the _fuck_ \--” Steve starts.

“Don’t touch my _goddamn radio_ ,” Billy snaps immediately, his eyes still closed, but he scoots over a little on the lounger, leaving space for Steve to settle back against, and he doesn’t actually change the station so--

\--so Steve settles back down against him and tries to see if he can make a convincing argument that Billy’s heart beats to pop music, which is why they should listen to that instead. Unsurprisingly, this data isn’t particularly useful.


End file.
